Letters are
(occasionally) edited for spelling errors , and may contain profanity.
This section contains normal correspondence as well as letters submitted
to the MailBag.
Commentary
by Jason "loonyboi" Bergman.

Man, wtf was id thinking
to tamper with the original Quake1 guy sound FX. He sounds nothing like
the original Q1 guy's voice. Definitely not something that'll hurt the
Q3 sales, but what a shame.

the neurobound.

Well, if you really want
to, you can always just hack the .PAK file and replace the sounds with
the original ones. :)

One reader's opinion.

From:
Shawn Subject: quake3 sucks

I have to say, after playing
the full version of Q3 Arena for no more than a day, I still like Q2
better. Q3 seems to be nothing more than Unreal... I am disappointed.
As far as I'm concerned, it's exactly the same as the Q3 test...LAME!

The reuse of some object-oriented
code has caused tactical head aches for Australia's armed forces. As
virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat
training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism
of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and - in the case
of the Northern Territory's Operation Phoenix - herds of kangaroos (since
disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position).

The head of the Defense
Science & Technology Organization's Land Operations/Simulation division
reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials' movements
and reactions to helicopters. Being efficient programmers, they just
re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment
reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier
to a kangaroo, and increased the figures' speed of movement.

Eager to demonstrate their
flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies
"buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation.
The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded
appreciatively... then did a
double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched
a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently
the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the infantry coding.)
The lesson?

Objects are defined with
certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one
inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned
to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left
with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife.

Simulator supervisors report
that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos,
just as they were meant to.

Q3's RAM usage.

From:Brett AllcornSubject: q3a memory management

I have been noticing that
Q3A takes up alot of memory, pratically unbeleivable. Upon anouncement
of the game, they claimed it would run on a 166mhz with 64mb of RAM.
Well I have a 500mhz P3 and 256mb of RAM. I am only running the game
at 640-480 and I experience alot of lag in single player bot matches.
Why do I think its a problem with the memory? Well I see alot of other
memory related problems. For instance, in the screen where you pick
your model. If you scroll though maybe 10 guys it stops displaying them
and starts to say low memory.

Then when you pick another
model, it says, "low memory, using previos player model" or
something of that sort. I mean, is it that hard for id to release the
memory used by viewing the models? Recently I just shut down q3 and
when I started it back up, I mean it have taken up so much of my memory
and not released it that the game would not even run, I mean like the
menu screen was lagged! Now this is all I see so far, but considering
my machine 256mb is alot of memory for a computer user, how does id
manage to write a game so bad it uses it all up?

I have no idea, but on
my p450 w/128 MB of RAM, I have none of the problems you describe...anyone
else know what's wrong here?

You ask, we tell.

From:Corey A. HarbaughSubject: Request info please!

Where could I find info on
creating q3 mods and maps? How what programs to use ext.

Thanks

There are a lot of places
to go...a good starting place is GameSpyder
(or just Yahoo). For map authoring
specifically, I'd suggest checking out QERadiant.com
(since QER is the official Quake III map editor).

Regarding those preview
images...

From:
chris Subject: q3a vs previews

L,

Remember the PCGamer article
about a year ago? Remember the mac demo from the conference and (though
I'm sure you never saw it, illegal as it was) the IHV demo? Whatever
happened to the flexing tongue, the giant, curved hallways, or the animated,
curved, fleshlike walls? I see none of it (except some flexing tubes
on one level) in the final release. I love the game, but were the graphics
over-hyped? Maybe they taxed frame-rates too much and had to be cut.

Just wondering,

veg_all

All that stuff made it
in there, although it's a bit subtle. The tongue is on Q3DM1, the pulsating
columns are in Q3DM4, and that other thing is on Q3DM13.

Keep huntin'.

From:
Triple_nnNSubject: Easter egg in Q3DM11?

I can't find anything wierd
at all in that map I found the user friendly guy in two
maps and the head in the corner in the other but i can't find anything
odd about Q3DM11.

Since I don't want to
spoil it for anyone, select the text below to read how to find this
easter egg:

First
of all, to the best of my knowledge, you cannot find this one without
cheating. So, instead of just using the /map command, bring down the
console (with the "~" key) and type, "/devmap q3dm11".

Once the
level loads, bring down the console again, and type, "/noclip"
to enable no-clipping.

Fly up
to the area that has a teleporter and a shotgun, and walk through the
opposing wall to find an old friend.

Overclock that V3!

From:
Douglas A. WrightSubject: Voodoo 3

I am looking for the utility
Voodoo 3 Overclocker.

Could you supply a link
of where to find it?

Thanks

Well, I don't know about
any utlilty, but check out these pages on Sharky Extreme to find out
how to do it:

>Court upholds hacker's
death sentence. Scary stuff. Even scarier is the fact >that one ofthem is avoiding the death
penalty by testifying... and they're
> brothers!

Why is that scary? They
stole the equivalent of $87,000! I don't care if it was done by hacking,
if China's laws are stricter, so be it. They are criminals, and would
be doing serious jail time in any democratic country anyhow.

Respecting other cultures
means respecting their differences in punishment, too.

-Seth "pureboy"
Isenberg

On copy protection issues.

From:
GithiankiSubject: Scott Miller missing something?

In reading Scott Miller's
.plan update (Blue's News DNF copy protection story of Dec. 7th), I
get the feeling that Scott has overlooked the obvious. He
states:

"Hit games used to
sell many more copies than they do nowdays, and a good part of the dramatic
drop must be due to the proliferation of CD-ROM burners."

Could it be that hit games
used to seel many more copies because:

A) The market is far larger
than it used to be in terms of competition.

B) Gamers have less free
time on their hands and thus buy fewer games even if they are great
and should be "hits."

C) There are fewer "hit"
caliber games as gamers get more discerning, educated, and expectant
of what a game should deliver.

D) Games are too expensive
in light of the cheaper entertainment available on consoles (which have
monster hits by PC sales standards).

The assumption that piracy
as a ratio to sales has dramatically increased
is flawed when one considers all the other pressures for the consumer
dollar
there are now in this industry. While I am sure CD-ROM burning is the
biggest piracy problem there is, I doubt that it has led to a dramatic
increase in piracy, thus hurting sales. Maybe this is true overseas,
where piracy is rampant (I have seen it), but the market overseas for
games has grown over the years not declined. In fact, I would go so
far as to venture that as game players mature (in age, working hard
for a living, and knowledge of the industry) that piracy would be on
the decline as people respect the amount of work that goes into making
a game.

I once read an interview
with a game sales manager who said he never saw an unsuccessful game
if you knew what price to sell at. Maybe too many companies are expecting
"hit" to mean strike it rich?

In the long run, games are
somewhat like movies, in that deserving games
may not get the commercial success their creators feel the film is entitled
to, but it won't be because of piracy.

Good question.

From:
KitanaSubject: Mouselook in q3a

Dear Blue,

I've used a a mouselook
key to toggle my freelook on and off since the days off duke3d and now
i dont see a option in q3a for it. did they take it out?

ive checked all the console
pages and they all have a bind for +mlook but none of them work. freelook
is still active and there in no command to turn freelook off. with your
connections can you try to find out if its truly lost forever of just
something im missing. i know atleast 50 or so player that use a mouselook
bind for id games and would love to here if it is still possible in
q3a

Sincerely,
Bob Wagner

Good question. I honestly
don't know the answer, but if someone does and sends it in, i'll be
sure to print it in our next mailbag.

I wonder how he plans on
doing this. Assuming those servers are legally purchased, it's not illegal
in any way for the admin to apply a patch. id can call that patch a
'crack' in they like, but it doesn't make it illegal.

When I get my copy of Q3A
(For those not in the USA, it's slow) I'm going to crack it to run a
server, because I don't support the use of CD Keys.

On the surface CD Keys are
a legitimate way to stop piracy, but when you get down to it, it just
turns Q3A into DIVX, where you have to get authorization from the company
to use the product you purchased.

Not only does this bring
up the possibility of being unfairly denied the use of your game, but
also when a company less scrupulous than id uses this technology, which
they will if it looks successful, what's to stop them from collecting
more information and building databases ala Real? (the MP3 player that
scanned your HD and reported the results to the company.)

id Software is perfectly
welcome to stop listing my server on their master server if they like,
but that's it. If they attempt to make me shut down my legally purchased
server just because they don't like how I'm running it, they won't have
any legal grounding at all.

I urge all admins to use
the same 'crack'. If not because you don't like the philosophy behind
user tracking, then because you don't want DIVX issues where people
are unable to connect simply because the Authorization server is having
problems.

Well, whatever the reasons,
id's master server can't tell the difference between someone running
a server using an illegal copy of Q3A and one that's being run by someone
who's protesting the use of CD-Keys. I don't think you're suggesting
that id just let pirate servers flourish, are you?

Sometimes a cigar is
just a cigar...

From:
Mike M.Subject: Q3 Authentication and Plan Tracker error

Hi there,

Stumbled across something
pretty cool in Outlook 2000. An e-mail I sent out I mentioned "Q3A".

I have automatic spell checking
on. When it came across Q3A the suggested replacement for the acronym
was "quad" :-)

That's pretty damn ironic
if you ask me.

Anyway keep up the awesome
work and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday
season.